“We’re gonna release an album this year!”

How many bands say this?

It has to be millions, right? And how many of those bands have all of the steps of their album release planned out in advance?

I’d guess a very small percentage.

But it shouldn’t be that way. It doesn’t have to be that way.
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Knowing what the steps are in the music release process and planning them have tremendous benefits for a band, including:

• You will be able to estimate how much money it will cost to get your music recorded and released
• You will be able to estimate the amount of studio time you’ll need to reserve. Sometimes, underestimating the number of hours or days you need will result in a delay to your project as the studio may be booked weeks in advance and you can’t get back in as soon as you’d like.
• You will have a more realistic idea of when your music release will be available
• You will be better prepared for the parts of the process that influence how good your recorded music sounds
• You will avoid common mistakes that will take time and money to undo
• You will be able to more accurately plan all of the other, time-sensitive activities that accompany a music release, like submitting your music to publications to review, hosting an album release party/concert, getting album artwork done, and so much more

So, in this post, I will cover the nine steps of the music release process so that you can be better prepared to release your music on-time and sounding the best it possibly can.

STEP 1: SONGWRITING (& REWRITING)

Obviously, before you record music, you have to create it. To many bands, writing a song is something that is done in one session. And, undoubtedly, many hits throughout the years were recorded where the melody, lyrics, music, etc. were exactly the same as first day the songs came into existence.

But, for most songs, there is room for improvement after the first day. What’s the best part of your song? Maybe it’s the riff. Maybe it’s the chorus. Maybe it’s the opening line.

What can you do to make every part of the song that good? There’s probably something you can improve. So, don’t think of songwriting as an activity that takes place in one hour then you’re done. Allow yourself time to craft your song. To challenge yourself to make it just a little bit – or a lot – better.

Don’t rush the songwriting process. Allow yourself time to make each song the best it can be.

STEP 2: REHEARSING

When musicians think of releasing music, their thoughts will drift to the recording studio. Ah, isn’t it alluring to think of being in a studio, surrounded by gear that is too complicated for you to understand, and being on the precipice of making history?

Sure. The studio is a place to make history. It is not a place to figure out what you are going to sing or play!

Studio time can be expensive – $60, $75 or even more per hour. So, you want to make efficient use of your time. Figuring out the notes you sing on a part or how you will play a guitar solo is not something you want to be doing while the proverbial meter is running.

Know what you’re going to sing or play once it’s your turn in the studio’s live room or isolation booth. Rehearse your parts so that they are so second nature that you’re likely to nail them perfectly in just one or two takes. Then, the time you spend in the studio will simply be executing what you’ve prepared.

It’s expensive to do it any other way. Not to mention that the results could be disappointing if you don’t go in prepared to kill it.

STEP 3: PRE-PRODUCTION

Pre-production is kind of a mysterious term. That’s because only professional musical artists and serious amateurs do it. If you want to be serious about getting the best recording you can, you should include pre-production activities as part of your music release process.

Pre-production involves all activities associated with tying up all loose ends prior to going into the studio. It’s when you make sure that your songs and your musicians are ready for the tracking step. Ideally, the pre-production step will end with you having a home demo of your songs.

Here are a sample of some of the things you should hope to accomplish in pre-production.

• Planning the order in which your music will be eventually recorded. Will you record multiple instruments live? Will you record “scratch tracks” (i.e., non-final recordings of one or more instruments or voices) to help keep the various musicians on-track as they record their “official” parts? Will you record drums first and then add one instrument/voice at a time thereafter?
• Making sure that all of the parts of your song work well. Change anything – from lyrics, to drum fills, to melodies, to instrument parts – that sounds awkward or less than smooth.
• Getting your drummer practice playing to a click track. It sounds easy, but some drummers struggle. The studio should not be the first place that your drummer tries playing to a click track – that can be stressful! And, by the way, assuming that you’re going for a professional recording, your drummer will play to a click track in the studio. Today’s music quality standards can’t accept any tempo inaccuracies and still result in a recording that sounds competitive with modern, professional artists.
• Identifying where overdubs will be necessary. We’ll talk about overdubs in a minute.

STEP 4: TRACKING (ALLOW 2+ HOURS PER SONG + SETUP TIME)

At this point, you are in the studio. Finally!

The tracking phase is where each musician – sometimes simultaneously, often individually – records his or her primary part of each song. If you engaged in pre-production activities, not much should be a surprise here, but merely a matter of execution. If you did not engage in pre-production activities, there may be many surprises.

One key thing to be prepared for is that, if you have a good engineer/producer tracking your project, you can expect feedback on your performance as you track. Maybe the engineer heard a vocal line that was delivered with too little confidence, or a guitar part that had some string noise, or a drum fill where the rim of the drum was hit, or some other subtle imperfection.

A good engineer will ask you to re-record your parts when he or she feels you can do better. That’s OK. No need to get frustrated. The more takes you do, the more likely you will end up with one that’s perfect. That’s important. You will have to live with your best take for the rest of your life, so it’s good to have multiple takes from which to choose!

Finally, be aware that you don’t have to do a whole take from the start of a song until the end. You can “punch in” to fix errors in the middle of a song while keeping the good parts of your take.

The amount of time it takes to track a song varies tremendously based on the number of instruments and voices involved and how many takes each musician requires to nail their parts. Don’t be surprised if it takes each musician a half-hour or more per instrument/voice per song to track a song.

Also, don’t be surprised if it takes two hours to load in and mic the drum set. Depending on the studio, you may be charged for this time. If the studio charges, factor that time – possibly over $100 – into your budget.

STEP 5: OVERDUBBING

Some may consider this step to be part of tracking. I like to list it separately, so you’re prepared.

Overdubs are where a musician plays a part that he or she was unable to play during his or her first run-through of the song. For example, your guitarist may want to record a song from start to finish and play the rhythm guitar part where the guitar solo will be, and then record the solo by itself during a separate take. Another example is if your lead vocalist is also singing back up vocals – he or she would sing the lead vocal first, then listen to that lead vocal while recording the backing vocal part.

STEP 6: EDITING (ALLOW 2+ HOURS PER SONG)

Editing is a phase of the recording process that many first-time recording artists didn’t anticipate. Sometimes, a recording process can bounce back and forth between steps 5 and 6, depending on the recording engineer’s workflow. And, while the process of editing isn’t very painful for the musicians, it can chew up hours and add to your total cost of recording. It’s not uncommon for editing to take two or more hours per song. So, it’s important to be financially prepared for editing.

Common tasks done during editing include:

• Combining multiple takes (“comping”) of a voice or instrument into a single track
• Vocal pitch correction
• Quantizing the drums (usually done after drums are tracked and before anything else is tracked, so that all instruments can be played in perfect time)
• Minor timing adjustments
• Cutting and pasting repeated parts where one instance of that part sounds significantly better than others. To cut-and-paste, tracking with a click track is required. That makes all repeated parts exactly the same length and available for cutting/pasting.

STEP 7: MIXING (ALLOW 3-10 HOURS PER SONG)

Mixing is the process of taking all the instruments and voices and blending them in a sonically pleasing way. This includes not just volume adjustments, but also how strongly each instrument or voice is heard in each ear/speaker (called “panning”). The mixing step also involves applying effects processing – like EQ, compression, reverb, delay, and other special effects – to the mix.

In my experience, I’ve seen songs require between three and 10 hours per song to mix. Ask your recording engineer what is typical for him or her for a band like yours.

STEP 8: MASTERING

Mastering is a step that surprises a lot of new recording artists. “You mean there’s something else I need done after my album’s been mixed?”

Yes. Yes, there is.

Mastering is the final – and critically important – process in getting your recorded music to sound as professional as possible. It also puts your music in a format that meets the technical requirements for radio airplay, streaming on services like Spotify, and CD manufacturing.

You should expect your recording to sound better once mastered. When done well, mastering will:

• Adjust the frequencies of your mix to have a sound that comes closer to matching the tone of national releases, with sufficient amounts of big bottom end and high-end sparkle
• Reduces the impact of any harsh frequencies that are in your mix
• Smooth out your mix so no part of your recording “jumps out” at the listener and shocks them or no part gets too quiet that the listener would have to increase the volume in the middle of a song
• Bring up the overall volume of your mix to the highest point possible before audible distortion rears its ugly head

It’s also important to know what mastering does not do. It does not fix a bad mix – if your vocals are totally buried and you can’t hear what your singer is singing, that’s a mix problem and something that mastering is not designed to address. If there are noises in your mix, mastering won’t take them away.

So, if you’re unhappy with a mix, don’t send it to mastering with the hopes that everything you hate about your mix will disappear. Professional mastering will help your mix sound even better. But, it’s not a cure-all for a bad mix or a miracle.
One last point on mastering…Mastering should not be done by your mix engineer, even if that mix engineer “claims” to be able to master music. Here’s why not:

• Mastering allows you to have another professional involved in your music production and bring a fresh perspective to the table in a way that really pays off. Your mix engineer will only bring his or her perspective and that was probably already exhausted out in the mix.
• Professional mastering requires specialized tools designed specifically for mastering that your mix engineer is unlikely to have invested in. Pro tip: Pro Tools and similar Digital Audio Workstations were not designed specifically for mastering!
• If you’re gonna pay someone for the time to do mastering for you, it makes sense to get someone who specializes in it, doesn’t it?

Disclosure: Before and After Music Group offers mastering services. Contact us if we can be of service to you!

STEP 9: DISTRIBUTION

After mastering, you will have the files you need to get your music out into the world! There are many services out there who have a web-based process where you upload your music, fill out some info, pay a small fee and they will distribute your music to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and all the other streaming platforms and digital download sites. These include CD Baby, Distrokid and others. Bandcamp allows you to sell digital downloads right on their site.
There are other services, like Discmakers, that can duplicate your CD’s, vinyl, USB drives, etc. and package digital distribution in. See what’s out there, ask some friends, and choose which service feels like it fits your needs best. Fortunately, there are a lot of good services to choose from!

GOOD LUCK

Well, these 9 steps have covered how you take an idea and eventually get it released as a song. Was this process more involved than you thought?

For most newer recording artists, it is. But, now that you know many of the fine details involved, you are better prepared to get your music out there in a time frame, within a budget, and with a quality production that meets your expectations!
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Good luck and please do keep Before and After Music Group in mind for your mastering needs!